More on David "pro-torture" Broder:

Broder's column urging Obama not to go after anybody involved in the torture of detainees (operatives, legal staff, those issuing orders) seems to have re-ignited the moral case. In particular Andrew Sullivan sees torture as a distinct issue, and not as one of many other executive branch transgressions (like politicizing the justice department and scientific agencies). While not an exact parallel to Shepard Smith's "We do not fucking torture!", it's in the same territory. Here are some of Sullivan's comments:

If I had one belief in politics, it would be that the freedoms secured by the modern West are worth fighting for. Absolutely central to those freedoms is barring the executive branch from torturing people. No power is more fatal to freedom and the rule of law than torture.

Its power is banned because it is a solvent to the rule of law, the establishment of truth, and the limits of government.

The precedent of a torturing American president must be reversed. That means it cannot be allowed to stand.

There is no way the American experiment can continue while legal and historical precedent gives the president the inherent authority to torture. It is the undoing of the core idea of the founding - protection against arbitrary, lawless, cruel and despotic rule. And the impact on the entire world of America allowing this to stand would be profound.

We don't want vengeance. We want America back. And we are going to fight on and on until we get it back.

ALSO: A good post at neumann103. One key sentence:

Mr. Broder, those memos reveal a deliberate, craven attempt to shoehorn torture into a definition that makes it some form of spa treatment. It was not “well-debated” it was shockingly poorly debated, both in scope and intellectual honesty. A policy was made essentially based on the contrivance of four lawyers, whose work was kept secret for years.

See also the Osterly Times.


posted by Quiddity at 4/25/2009 10:30:00 PM